Oregon's New Health Insurance Exchange Opens Oct. 1

Image illustrating choosing a health plan from the Healthcare.gov website.

Healthcare.gov

But if you want to be among the first to use the website, you’ll have to work with a trained insurance agent or community group.

Cover Oregon executive director, Rocky King, customers will have to use experts to start with. “That really is a way for us to really identify particular problems and issues that come up that we can then fix overnight,” he said.

The Cover Oregon website.

“We’ve got 24/7 folks working on anything that comes up during those first few weeks, to really put that system together.”

The agency has trained close to 3,000 experts and developed 50 contingency plans for things that might go wrong.

Screenshot from the Laura Gibson ad for Cover Oregon: "Long Live Oregon."

Cover Oregon

King says a record number of people are already visiting the website — to see how much they might have to pay for health insurance and whether they get a tax credit.

As part of its promotional effort, the agency is planning to offer prizes to high school marching bands that play the Cover Oregon advertising songs.